The driver would’ve been hit with a lesser punishment if they were just honest.
Mecklenburg County commuter and Redditor /u/NowWeAllSmell shared headshaking dashcam footage from Mint Hill to the /r/Dashcams subreddit showing a u-turner failing to yield the right of way at this busy intersection, almost causing a t-bone collision.
Check out the dashcam footage of how it all unfolded, embedded below, along with the original Reddit thread linked here.
First Day of School, Almost Celebrated with a T-BONE
byu/NowWeAllSmell indashcams
The incident happened at the intersection of Ablemarle Rd/ NC-27 and Blair Rd. in Mint Hill, NC (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As the dashcam footage shows, OP is scooting along NC-27 towards Ablemarle Rd after a successful first day of school.
The speed limit in the area is 55 MPH.
As evidenced by their dashcam, they’re going slightly below that and even slowed as they approached the aforementioned intersection.
As OP approaches the intersection with Blair Rd, they can see a driver in a Ford Transit work van pop a U-turn while OP and traffic in their lane still have the green light and, therefore, the right of way.
OP swerves to avoid hitting the work van, just barely.
The driver in the Pye Barker work van, realizing the near miss, slows, gets in front of OP, and eventually comes to a stop to talk things out.
“As I pulled around him to pass (slowly, it was a red light and I was moving into the emptier lane), he yelled at me that I must have been going at least 70, and I should slow down. I told him there’s no way I could have stopped if I was going that fast, but I also had a dashcam so he could debate my speed with/ his boss when I send it,” OP replied to a commenter asking why he’d even stop to argue when he was clearly in the wrong.
And, in an update the next day, OP says the driver was reprimanded for their actions and would’ve got a lesser punishment if they told the truth.
“I got a response this morning (so 24 hours later) from their regional manager. He was aware that the driver tried to deny wrongdoing (he also told them I had run the red light…that his was yellow and he thought he had right-of-way).”
“They normally operate on a three strikes and you’re out policy, but they counted this as two strikes. One for the driving and one for the misrepresentation.”
Thankfully, nothing major happened, and everyone made it out unscathed.
Not only did the dashcam provide evidence if, God forbid, the other driver did make contact, even though they didn’t, it was evidence to clear OP’s name and was ultimately used to punish dishonesty.
In North Carolina, failure to yield gets a driver a $35 base fine and three points on their record.
